The next time Xantcha awoke the pain and fire were gone. She was weak, but whole, and lying on softness such as she had not felt since leaving the vats. A man hovered beside her, staring into the distance. She had the strength for one word and chose it carefully.
"Why?"
His face, worried as he stared, turned grim when he looked down.
"I thought the Phyrexians would kill you."
Beyond doubt, he spoke the language of Xantcha's dreams, the language of the place where she had been destined to sleep. He knew the name of her place, too, and had correctly guessed that the Phyrexians meant to kill her, but he hadn't seemed to recognize that she was also Phyrexian. Waves of caution washed through Xantcha's weakened flesh. She fought to hide her shivering.
A piece of cloth covered her. He pulled it back, revealing her naked flesh. His frown deepened.
"I thought they'd captured you. I thought they would change you, as they changed my brother. But I was too late. You bled. There is no metal or oil beneath your skin, but they'd already made you one of them. Do you remember who you were, child? Why did they take you? Did you belong to a prominent family? Where were you born?"
She took a deep breath. Honesty, under the present circumstances seemed the best course, as it had been with Gix, for surely this man was a demon. And, just as surely, he was already at war with Phyrexia. "I was not born, I have no family and I was never a child. I am the Orman'huzra who calls herself Xantcha. I am Phyrexian; I belong to Phyrexia."
He made white-knuckled fists above Xantcha's face. She closed her eyes, lacking the strength for any other defense, but the blows didn't fall.
"Listen to me closely, Xantcha. You belong to me, now. After what was done to you, for whatever reason it was done, you have no cause for love or loyalty to Phyrexia, and if you're clever, you'll tell me everything you know, starting with how you and the others planned to get home."
Xantcha was clever. Gix himself had conceded that. She was clever enough to realize that this yellow-haired man was both more and less than he seemed. She measured her words carefully. "There is a shelter at the bottom of the hill. Take me there. I will show you the way to Phyrexia."
CHAPTER 7
"Wake up!"
Words and jostling ended Xantcha's sleep so thoroughly that for a heartbeat she neither knew where she was nor what she'd been dreaming. In short order she recognized Rat and the streamside grove where she'd fallen asleep, both awash in morning light, but the dreams remained lost. She hadn't intended to fall deeply asleep and was angry with herself for that error and surprised to find Rat clinging to her forearm.
He retreated when she glowered.
"You had a nightmare."
Images shook out of Xantcha's memory: the damp world of insect artifacts, her last beating at Phyrexian hands, Urza hurling fire and sorcery to rescue her. Those were moments of her life that Xantcha would rather not dream about. Between them and anger, she was in a sour mood.
"You didn't take advantage?" she demanded.
Rat answered, "I considered it," without hesitation. "All night I considered it, but I'm a long way from anywhere, I've got a chain between my feet, and even though you may be stronger than me and have that thing that makes us fly, you're still a boy. You need someone to take care of you."
"Me? I need someone to take care of me?" Of all the reasons she could think of to find herself in possession of a slave, that was the last she'd expected. "What about your word?"
He shrugged. "I've had a night to think about it. When I woke up ... at first I thought you were pretending to be asleep, waiting for me to run. But if I were going to run- walk-" Rat rattled the chain. "I'd have to make sure you couldn't catch me again."
"What were you going to do? Strangle me? Bash my head?"
Another shrug. "I didn't get that far. You started having your nightmare. It looked like a bad one, so I woke you-you don't believe that Shratta nonsense about dreams and your soul?"
"No." Xantcha knew little about the Shratta's beliefs, except that they were violently intolerant of everyone else's. Besides, Urza had said she'd lost her soul in the vats.
"Then why are you so cross-grained? I'm still here, and you're not dreaming a miserable dream."
Xantcha stretched herself upright. Assor's basket was where she'd left it, exactly as she left it, not a crumb unaccounted for. She separated another meal and tossed Rat a warning along with his bread.
"I don't need anyone taking care of me. Don't want it either. When we get to the cottage, your name becomes Mishra, and Urza's the one who needs your help."
Rat grunted. Xantcha expected something more, but it seemed that he'd discovered the virtues of silence and obedience, at least until she told him to sit beside her.
"There's no other way?" he asked, turning pale. "Can't we walk? Even with the chain, I'd rather walk."
Xantcha shook her head and Rat bolted for the bushes. After trying unsuccessfully to turn himself inside out and wasting his breakfast, Rat crawled back to her side.
"I'm ready now."
"I've never fallen from the sky, Rat. Never come close. You're safer than you'd be in a wagon or walking on your
own two feet."
"Can't help it-" Rat began then froze completely as Xantcha yawned and the sphere spread from her open mouth.
He started for the bushes again. Knowing that his gut was empty and that she'd be the one who'd be vomiting if she had to bite off the sphere before it was finished, Xantcha grabbed the back of Rat's neck and held his head in her lap until the sphere was rising.
"The worst is over. Sit up. Don't think so much. There's always something to see. Watch the clouds, the ground."
Ground was the wrong word. Cursing feebly, Rat clung to her for dear life. If he couldn't relax, it was going to be a painful journey for both of them. Xantcha tried sympathy.
"Talk to me, Rat. Tell me why you're so afraid. Put your fears into words."
But he couldn't be reassured, so Xantcha tried a less gentle approach. Freeing one arm, she set the sphere tumbling, then yelled louder than his moans:
"I said, talk to me, Rat. You're giving in to fear, Rat." She thought of her feet touching ground, and the sphere plummeted; she thought of playing among the clouds and the sphere rebounded at a truly dizzying speed. "You haven't begun to know fear. Now, talk to me! Why are you afraid?"
Rat screamed, "It's wrong! It's all wrong. I can feel the sky watching me, waiting. Waiting for a chance to throw me down!"
He was sobbing, but his death grip loosened as soon as the words were out of his mouth.
Xantcha diumped Rat soundly between the shoulders. "I won't let the sky have you."
"Doesn't matter. It knows I'm here. Knows I don't belong. It's waiting."
She thumped him again. Rat's complaint was too much like her own in the early days, when Urza would drag her between-worlds. Urza had the planeswalker spark; the fathomless stuff between the multiverse's countless world- planes bent to his will. Xantcha had been, and remained, an unwelcome interloper. The instant the between-worlds furled around her, she could hear the vast multi-verse sucking its breath, preparing to spit her out.
The planeswalker spark was something a mind either had, or didn't have. Xantcha didn't have it; Urza couldn't share his. The cyst was the only stopgap that he'd been able to devise. It didn't leave Xantcha feeling any less like an interloper, but it did give promise that she'd be alive when the multiverse spat her out. She'd ask Urza to implant a cyst in Rat's belly-in Mishra's belly-but until then, there was nothing she could do except keep him talking.